SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Fourteen Russia-backed YouTube channels spreading disinformation have been generating billions of views and millions of dollars in advertising revenue, according to researchers, and had not been labeled as state-sponsored, contrary to the world’s most popular streaming service’s policy.

The channels, including news outlets NTV and Russia-24, carried false reports ranging from a U.S. politician covering up a human organ harvesting ring to the economic collapse of Scandinavian countries. Despite such content, viewers have flocked to the channels and U.S. and European companies have bought ads that run alongside them.

The previously unpublished research by Omelas, a Washington-based firm that tracks online extremism for defense contractors, provides the most comprehensive view yet of the Russian government’s success in attracting viewers and generating revenue from propaganda on YouTube, which has 2 billion monthly viewers worldwide.

YouTube, owned by Alphabet Inc’s Google, introduced a policy in February of 2018 to identify channels predominantly carrying news items and are wholly or partly funded by national governments, in order to help users make informed viewing decisions.

YouTube said on Wednesday that following inquiries from Reuters it added the state-funding disclaimer to 13 additional Russian channels, including eight of the channels spreading disinformation.

Twelve other Russia-sponsored channels identified by Omelas with misleading or inaccurate news reports already had the state-funding label.

5. . . . It was not designed to be an echo chamber. . . .

I've been on DI since it's "birth", and am sorta confused as to the intent of its creation - well, other than to create $$ for the owners . . . . .

Admins rarely contribute/participate and sure as hell do not do much in maintenance/upgrade . . .

can't even fix the texting thingies that are not functional or just don't give a rat's ass?

The closest I can come to a reason for DI's continued existence is that it provides amusement for the creators to watch us slaughter each other . . . A digital version of the Roman Colosseum sorta thing